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I've been angry about it since the beginning. This was predictable, and now people are asking for compassion? Compassion was us yelling about this since the be
by scoofy 4y ago
I've been angry about it since the beginning. This was predictable, and now people are asking for compassion?
Compassion was us yelling about this since the beginning.
Compassion was the folks who developed Dogecoin as a satire coin to explain the problems involved in the system.
Asking people to 'be full of compassion' is fine, and dancing on graves is terrible, but the time for compassion was the warnings that were years back, in the face of 'have fun being poor' taunts, while never ever folding or letting up. The sentiment here was the same type of nice but not kind nonsense that has gripped much of the culture.
I try to think of the people I convinced not to speculate in these markets. The fortunes not lost because people came to me as a life long investor, asking my opinion of cryto markets, and me carefully arguing that they were a commodity, not an investment vehicle, and you don't generally invest in rocks, because rocks don't produce anything.
Those of us out there that saved people from losing their life savings will never be acknowledged, because humans do not care to think about the lives that were saved by safety precautions, only the lives that were lost due to negligence.
https://medium.com/@philberent1/why-the-terra-luna-protocol-will-almost-certainly-fail-ca9d3e9b3662 https://medium.com/@philberent1/why-the-terra-luna-protocol-...
https://twitter.com/jordonaut/status/1352363163686068226 https://twitter.com/jordonaut/status/1352363163686068226
- lrvick 4y agoMeanwhile I have a house and was able to lift out of poverty by ignoring people like you and saving in BTC instead of USD for the last decade. YMMV.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- nathanaldensr 4y agoEven gamblers occasionally hit the jackpot.
- JumpCrisscross 4y ago> I have a house and was able to lift out of poverty by ignoring people like you and saving in BTC instead of USD for the last decade. YMMV. This is fine. But you acknowledge you gambled. If you'd lost, it would have been inappropriate to ask for others' sympathy or, worse, public support.
- notch656a 4y agoThe only way to not gamble wealth is not to have it. Leaving cash in the bank is gambling that government won't inflate it away. Buying equities is gambling that market conditions won't change. Buying bonds is gambling that the returns will outpace inflation and that the bond seller won't default.
- JumpCrisscross 4y ago> only way to not gamble wealth is not to have it This is a false analogy between taking measured risks and gambling. Putting 100% of your assets into anything, particularly a cryptocurrency, is gambling.
- notch656a 4y agoPutting 100% of your assets into one thing is bad gambling. Putting your assets into diversified, positive-sum assets is good gambling. I can play semantic games too :)
- JumpCrisscross 4y ago> Putting your assets into diversified, positive-sum assets is good gambling. I can play semantic games too Semantics means arguing over definitions, not misunderstanding them. The difference between positive- and zero-sum systems is unambiguous. We can call participating in the latter, whether by trading cryptocurrencies or derivatives or playing slots, with an intent to profit gambling or wijiwogging or blurlippening, it doesn't matter, the expected outcome is the same.
- danrocks 4y agoYou just got lucky. It is time everyone in crypto acknowledge that.
- mensetmanusman 4y agoTrue in almost all aspects of life.
- kurthr 4y agoEven if you think BTC with limited coinage is valid (vs Dogecoin which is unlimited), how can you believe an algo "stable coin" like UST is after the iron.finance failure?
- scoofy 4y agoGood for you. People like you will make money. That's how all speculative bubbles form... nobody would join them if there weren't highly visible gains in wealth, but they are effectively zero-sum. Unless the product creates value, independent from speculative value, it's a bad investment period. The entire reason we were banging our drums was exactly because people made money, but the music will stop, and when it does, all that value disappears. There is nothing wrong with crypo as a commodity. If you need it to build something with, fine, but it's not a wealth creating asset. It's a commodity, which is effectively never an investment vehicle.
- gfodor 4y agoThe crash was in a non-appreciating asset.
- jiggawatts 4y ago“I played Russian roulette and won, you should try it too!” is not a very convincing argument. Nonetheless, the winners think they’re winners because they made the right choices and will try to convince others to follow suit.
- kareemsabri 4y agoDon't people trade in commodities though? Corn and soy and other things fluctuate in price because of their utility and changes in supply and demand, no?
- 4y ago
- greiskul 4y agoDid new wealth get created? Cryptocoins are a negative sum game (trading is zero sum, but since mining wastes resources, total has to be negative). For you to have gained this wealth, a group of people have to have lost this wealth, they might not have realized it yet. A ponzi scheme doesn't stop being a ponzi scheme because your personally profited from it. It doesn't stop being a ponzi scheme because it uses complex technology that 99% of people don't understand.
- lupire 4y agoYour money came from the people who ruined their lives gambling.
- jaakl 4y agoBad carma for 7 generations
- spoonjim 4y agoYes, but your story only exists because you found a bag holder who may or may not jump off a bridge when the chickens come home to roost.
- lrvick 4y agoI am still holding that bag and buying more myself because I see utility in private, decentralized, and censorship resistant value storage. I will have no regrets for funding digital sovereignty. It is a war for critical freedoms that if lost at least wont be as bloody as those with weapons. The world I want to live in requires decentralized money and governance and I continually vote with my wallet.
- diegocg 4y agoAnd someone lost their life savings so that you could have that.
- dabeeeenster 4y agoDude, where did you think that money came from?
- oarsinsync 4y agoLet’s see if the next decade delivers returns like the last decade. There’s no guarantees of that, unless you believe past performance is an indicator of future success. I won’t be getting a house unless it does, so here’s hoping. I also won’t be in trouble if it doesn’t, so here’s also to a sensible investment strategy.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- kurthr 4y agoYeah, when even cryptocoin bulls consider these ponzis... you have to wonder if there is any rational reason for holding them is a greater fool and a belief that you can get out faster than others. I do wonder how you calculate the psychic cost of constantly monitoring your "stable coin", or maybe the answer is just the 20% annual returns on Anchor? Almost the exact thing happened with ironfinance a year ago! https://ciphertrace.com/analysis-of-the-titan-token-collapse-iron-finance-rugpull-or-defi-bank-run/ https://ciphertrace.com/analysis-of-the-titan-token-collapse...
- crowbahr 4y agoJust pointing out 1 dogecoin is still worth 1 dogecoin. Wow! (Also 100% agree on the compassion thing: schadenfreude for ostriches who thought sticking their head in the sand would make the objections false is only natural.)
- scoofy 4y agoI know you're being flip, but this is exactly my point. If you needed doge to go out and buy an NFT (if that's your cup of tea) you can still go convert your money into doge to buy an NFT! The usefulness of the commodity doesn't change, just like apples or steel, it's something you can go out and buy with your savings. Just don't buy apples because you think the value of apples is going to skyrocket forever! At best, apples will go up for a temporary period and then find equilibrium.
- AmericanChopper 4y ago> Just don't buy apples because you think the value of apples is going to skyrocket forever This is terrible advice. People speculatively trade commodities all the time, including agriculture commodities. They are just as valid of an investment as equities are. Your advice that commodities are “not an investment vehicle” is simply wrong, and can be proved wrong with very minimal effort. I wonder how everybody you convinced using this rationale is going to feel when they discover it is nonsense…
- ambrozk 4y agoWhat you're saying makes zero sense. What is this commodity that you think will skyrocket forever, that people should perpetually hold as an investment vehicle?
- AmericanChopper 4y ago“Skyrocket forever” is clearly a hyperbole. But commodities can and frequently do go on sustained rallies.
- 4y ago
- vmception 4y agoI think its the time for education. Where are the news articles about the stablecoins functioning perfectly? There are a quite a few stablecoins functioning perfectly. You pressed play on your “oh a crypto thing” script about anything crypto related and tradeable. You’re in comfortable and like company, but the issue with it is that it dilutes the conversation way from the one specific organization that launched Terra and Luna. This is the exact forum that should be talking about system designs, instead has all these odd anti-speculation rants. Half of this forum is paid in lottery tickets, its out of character.
- thrwyoilarticle 4y agoLuna was functioning perfectly until it wasn't. Tether continues to function, for now.
- vmception 4y ago
- heartbreak 4y agoI can’t help but recognize that this is EXACTLY what ‘scoofy is referring to.
- vmception 4y agoI see that too, I think our takeaways are very different
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- ahallock 4y agoNetflix was doing great, then other services came along. Local restaurants were doing well, then covid hit. Most things have a life cycle and black swan events happen. Can't be avoided; you can only have a contingency plan.
- thawaya3113 4y agoThis is why crypto needs to collapse sooner rather than later. To minimize the self harm.
- im_down_w_otp 4y agoThere are a variety of non-tech circles that I incidentally run in. Biking, skiing, gaming, etc. Because I'm the "tech founder" of the group I regularly get questions like, "Soooo... know of any good crypto I should invest in?" My response eventually consolidated to, "When making an investment, don't buy things you don't understand. Because odds are someone selling it to you as an investment does understand it, and that difference in your respective understandings is their investment."
- ahallock 4y agoThis is spot on and how whales take advantage of retail. Or influencers dump on their followers.
- la6472 4y agoI agree. What the hell is NFT Stablecoin and all the other snake oils been pedaled all this time .. could not make head or tails of them.
- throwawaymaths 4y agoThat's fine advice as long as you are willing to, in the same breath, tell people not to invest in vanguard mutual funds. Any causal investor who claims they understand those is lying, even if they in fact are a stabler, safer investment.
- WaxProlix 4y agoDid you mis-paste? I don't know what that east coast west coast tweet have to do with anything? Seems like a non sequiter, unless I'm missing something?
- oarsinsync 4y agoRead through whole thread. It’s about the difference between being kind, and being nice, and how the two aren’t necessarily connected.
- WaxProlix 4y agoI've read it, the thread makes its way through the internet every week or so. In this case, it seems to just muddy the waters, but obviously others disagree.
- scoofy 4y agoIt's effectively a non sequitur, yes. The point is that "feeling bad" for people who lost everything does not help them. It is not, in fact, compassionate, at all. Compassion is donating to funds that help these people. Compassion is not participating in tax-avoidance, and participating in gov't, so we can have a society where people can actually lose everything and move on with their lives in a reasonable way. "Feeling bad" isn't helping anyone and is actually just a way of making yourself feel faux-noble.
- WaxProlix 4y agoI agree with your stance, but think the metaphor itself is very strained. FWIW I also think the call to action here was "don't be a dick" more than it was "feel bad". Of course being a dick while advocating for better protections from this kind of scheme is better than feeling bad and doing nothing.
- DennisP 4y agoAs the article mentions, the drop for BTC and ETH was nothing unusual. This was a problem specific to UST/LUNA. Plenty of people in crypto warned about them. Algorithmic stablecoins like this have been tried before on Ethereum and all of them have failed.
- skybrian 4y agoI'll just point out that talking about being "kind" (under this nonstandard definition) isn't doing it. It's great that you gave your friends good advice, but is that what you're doing when you're bringing it up today? None of us are doing anything material by talking about it on Hacker News, but the person you replied to seems closer to being kind at this moment?
- scoofy 4y agoYou can be nice at this moment, but it's not helping anyone. Being kind, in this nice vs kind sense, means actually fucking doing something beyond purely symbolic gestures.